21 SEPTEMBER – 16 OCTOBER
Twenty-five years ago, in September 1982, Storefront’s first public event got underway in its original Prince Street location. Performance A-Z, organized by the gallery’s founders Kyong Park and R L Seltman, and artist Arleen Schloss, was a 26-day sequence of performances by New York-based artists. Each of the 26 performers was allocated one evening slot. The event became a manifesto for the gallery’s future programming: as Kyong Park wrote in his introduction, “Storefront supports the idea that art and design have the potential and responsibility to affect public policies which influence the quality of life and the future of all cities.”
In late September 2007, Storefront celebrated its 25th anniversary with a new edition of its first event. Entitled Performance Z-A, this 26-day celebration was hosted in Petrosino Park, adjacent to Storefront, in a specially built pavilion designed by Korean architect Minsuk Cho.
Organized by the three directors who have led Storefront over the past 25 years (Kyong Park, Sarah Herda and Joseph Grima), Performance Z-A was an inclusive event involving not only performance artists but also representatives of all the disciplines that have participated in Storefront’s program in the past decades: architects, artists, writers, researchers, filmmakers, photographers, musicians and more. For 26 days, from September 21 to October 16, 2007, the protagonists of Storefront’s past, present and future hosted 26 evening events including performances, concerts, open discussions, film screenings and interviews.
Notes
Internationally renowned photographer Ramak Fazel tells the remarkable story of his most recent photographic project, to be exhibited at Storefront in 2008. In the summer of 2006, Fazel set out in a camper van to visit and photograph every Capitol Building in the 50 States and the everyday life of the people who work in and around them. A third of the way through his trip, Fazel is detained and mirandized on suspicions of terrorism. He is released and continues his journey, but from then on his observations of everyday America occur in the context of continuous police interrogation and FBI surveillance.
A collaborative musical venture between singer-songwriters Emma Zakarevicius and Sasha Markovic.
